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I test the temperature. It is 83 degrees, warm but not hot. Just
right.
I spend the next hour puttering around, checking medications,
adjusting the humidity, cleaning one of the life stations. Then
Superintendent Bailey stops by on his way out to dinner.
"How are your charges doing?" he asks. "Any problems today?"
"No, sir, everything’s fine," I answer.
"Good," he says. "We wouldn’t want any problems, especially not
with the celebration coming up."
The celebration is the turn of the century, although there is
some debate about that, because we are all preparing to celebrate
the instant the clock hits midnight and a.d. 2200 begins, but
some spoilsport scientists (or maybe they’re mathematicians) have
told the press that the new century really begins a year later, when we enter 2201.
Not that my charges know the difference, but I’m glad we’re celebrating
it this year, because it means that we’ll decorate the place with
bright colors–and if we like it, why, we’ll do it again in 2201.
I have been married to Felicia for seventeen years, and I hardly
ever regret it. She was a little bit pudgy when we met, and she
has gotten pudgier over the years so that now she is honest-to-goodness
fat and there is simply no other word for it. Her hair, which
used to be brown, is streaked with gray now, and she’s lost whatever
physical grace she once had. But she is a good life partner. Her
taste in holos is similar to mine, so we almost never fight about
what to watch after dinner, and of course we both love our work.
As we eat dinner, the topic turns to our gardens, as always.
"I’m worried about Rex," she confides.
Rex is Begonia rex, her hanging basket.
"Oh?" I say. "What’s wrong with him?"
She shakes her head in puzzlement. "I don’t know. Perhaps I’ve
been letting him get too much sun. His leaves are yellowing, and his roots could be in
better shape."
"Have you spoken to one of the botanists?"
"No. They’re totally absorbed in cloning that new species of Aglaonema crispum."
"Still?"
She shrugs. "They say it’s important."
"The damned plant’s been around for centuries," I say. "I can’t
see what’s so important about it."
"I told you: they engineered an exciting mutation. It actually
glows in the dark, as if it’s been dusted with phosphorescent
silver paint."
"It’s not going to put the energy company out of business."
"I know. But it’s important to them."
"It seems unfair," I say for the hundredth, or maybe the thousandth,
time. "They get all the fame and money for creating a new species,
and you get paid the same old salary for keeping it alive."
"I don’t mind," she replies. "I love my work. I don’t know what
I’d do without my greenhouse."
"I know," I say soothingly. "I feel the same way."
"So how is your Rex today?" she asks.
It’s my turn to shrug. "About the same as usual." Suddenly I laugh.
"What’s so funny?" asks Felicia.
"You think your Rex is getting too much sun. I decided my Rex wasn’t getting enough, so this afternoon I moved him closer
to a window."
"Will it make a difference, do you think?" she asks.
I sigh deeply. "Does it ever?"
I walk up to the major and smile at him. "How are we today?" I
ask.
The major looks at me through unfocused eyes. There is a little
drool running out the side of his mouth, and I wipe it off.
"It’s a lovely morning," I say. "It’s a pity you can’t be outside
to enjoy it." I pause, waiting for the reaction that never comes.
"Still," I continue, "you’ve seen more than your share of them,
so missing a few won’t hurt." I check the screen at his life station,
find his birthdate, and dope it out. "Well, I’ll be damned! You’ve
actually seen 60,573 mornings!"
Of course, he’s been here for almost half of them: 29,882 to be
exact. If he ever did count them, he stopped a long time ago.
I clean and sterilize his feeding tubes and his medication tubes
and his breathing tubes, examine him for bedsores, wash him, take
his temperature and blood pressure, and check to make sure his
cholesterol hasn’t gone above the 350 level. (They want it lower,
of course, but he can’t exercise and they’ve been feeding him
intravenously for more than half a century, so they won’t do anything
about changing his diet. After all, it hasn’t killed him so far,
and altering it just might do so.)
I elevate his withered body just long enough to change the bedding,
then gently lower him back down. (That used to take ten minutes,
and at least one helper, before they developed the anti-grav beam.
Now it’s just a matter of a few seconds, and I like to think it
causes less discomfort, though of course the major is in no condition
to tell me.)
Then it’s on to Rex. Felicia has problems with her Rex, and I
have problems with mine.
"Good morning, Rex," I say.
He mumbles something incomprehensible at me.
I look down at him. His right eye is bloodshot and tearing heavily.
"Rex, what am I going to do with you?" I say. "You know you’re
not supposed to stare at the sun."
He doesn’t really know it. I doubt that he even knows his name
is Rex. But cleansing his eye and medicating it is going to put
me behind schedule, and I have to blame someone. Rex doesn’t mind being blamed. He doesn’t mind burning out his
retina. He doesn’t even mind lying motionless for decades. If
there is anything he does mind, nobody’s found it yet.
I spill some medication on him while fixing his eye, so I decide
that rather than just change his diaper I might as well go all
the way and give him a DryChem bath. I marvel, as always, at the
sheer number of surgical scars that criss-cross his torso: the
first new heart, the second, the new kidneys, the new spleen,
the new left lung. There’s a tiny, ancient scar on his lower belly
that I think was from the removal of a burst appendix, but I can’t
find any record of it on the computer and he’s been past talking
about it for almost a century.
Then I move on to Mr. Spinoza. He’s lying there, mouth agape,
eyes open, head at an awkward angle. I can tell even before I
reach him that he’s not breathing. My first inclination is to
call Emergency, but I realize that his life station will have
reported his condition already, and sure enough, just seconds
later the Resurrection Team arrives and sets up a curtain around
him (as if any of his roommates could see or care), and within
ten minutes they’ve got the old gentleman going again.
This is the fifth time Mr. Spinoza has died this year. All this
dying has to be hard on his system, and I worry that one of these
days it’s going to be permanent.
"So how was your major today?" asks Felicia at dinner.
"Same as usual," I say. "How’s yours?"
Her major is the Browallia speciosa majorus. "Ditto," she says. "Old, but hanging on." She frowns. "We may
not get any blossoms this year, though. The roots are a little
ropey."
"I’m sorry to hear it."
"It happens." She pauses. "How was the rest of your day?"
"We had some excitement," I reply.
"Oh?"
"Mr. Spinoza died again."
"That’s the fourth time, isn’t it?" she asks.
"The fifth," I correct her. "The Resurrection Team revived him."
"The Resuscitation Team," she corrects me.
"You have your word for them, I have mine," I say. "Mine’s better.
Resurrection is what they do."
"So you’ve only lost one this week," says Felicia, if not changing
the subject at least moving on a tangent away from it.
"Right. Mr. Lazlo. He was 193 years old."
"One hundred and ninety-three," she muses, and then shrugs. "I
guess he was entitled."
"You mentioned that you lost one too," I note.
"My cymbidium."
"That’s an orchid, right?" I say. "The one they nicknamed Peter
Pan?"
She nods.
"Silly name for an orchid," I remark.
"It stayed young forever, or so it seemed," she replies. "It had
the most exquisite blooms. I’m really going to miss it. I’d had
it for almost twenty years." She smiles sadly, and a single tear
begins to roll down her cheek. "I worked so hard over it, sometimes
I felt like its mother." She looks at me. "That sounds ludicrous,
doesn’t it?"
"Not at all," I say, sincerely touched by her grief.
"It’s all right," she says. Then she stares at my face. "Don’t
be so concerned. It was just a flower."
"It’s called empathy," I answer, and she lets it drop . . . but
I am troubled, and by the oddest thought: Shouldn’t I feel worse about losing a person than she feels about
losing an orchid?
But I don’t.
I don’t know when it began. Probably with the first caveman who
made a sling for a broken arm, or forced water out of a drowned
companion’s lungs. But somewhere back in the dim and distant past
man invented medicine. It had its good centuries and its bad centuries,
but by the end of the last millennium it was curing so many diseases
and extending so many lives that things got out of hand.
More than half the people who were alive in 2050 were still alive
in 2150. And almost 90 percent of the people who were alive in
2100 will be alive in 2200. Medical science had doubled and then
trebled man’s life span. Immortality was within our grasp. Life
everlasting beckoned.
We were so busy increasing the length of life that no one gave
much thought to the quality of those extended lives.
And then we woke up one day to find that there were a lot more
of them than there were of us.
His name is Bernard Goldmeier. They carry him in on an airsled,
then transfer him to Mr. Lazlo’s old life station.
After I clean the major’s tubes and change his bedding and medicate
Rex’s eye, I call up Mr. Goldmeier’s medical history on the holoscreen
at his life station.
"This place stinks!" rasps a dry voice.
I jump, startled, then turn to see who spoke. There is no one
in the room except me and my charges.
"Who said that?" I demand.
"I did," replies Mr. Goldmeier.
I look closely at him. The skin hangs loose and brown-spotted
on his bald head. His cheeks are covered by miscolored flesh and
his nose has oxygen tubes inserted into it–but his eyes, sunken
deep in his head, are clear and he is staring at me.
"You really spoke!" I exclaim.
"You never heard an inmate speak before?"
"Not that I remember."
Which is another unhappy truth. By age hundred, one out of every
two people has some form of senile dementia. By one hundred and
twenty-five, it’s four out of five. By one hundred and fifty,
it’s ninety-nine out of one hundred. Mr. Goldmeier is one hundred
and fifty-three years old; the odds against his retaining anything
close to normal mental capacities are better than a hundred to
one.
"I should add," I say, "that the proper term is ‘charge,’ not
‘patient’ and certainly not ‘inmate.’ "
"A zombie by any other name . . ."
I decide there is no sense arguing with him. "How do you feel?"
I ask.
"Look at me," he says disgustedly. "How would you feel?"
"If you’re in any discomfort . . ." I begin.
"I told you: this place stinks. It reeks of shit and urine."
"Some of our charges are incontinent," I explain. "We have to
show them understanding and compassion."
"Why?" he rasps. "What do they show us in exchange?"
"Try to be a little more tolerant," I say.
"You try!" he snaps. "I’m busy!"
I can’t help but ask: "Busy doing what?"
"Hanging onto reality!"
I smile. "Is that so difficult?"
"Why don’t you ask some of your other inmates?" He sniffs the
air and makes a face. "Goddamnit! Another one’s crapping all over
himself! What the hell am I doing here anyway? I’m not a fucking
vegetable yet!"
I check all the notations on the screen.
"You’re here, Mr. Goldmeier," I say, not without some satisfaction
at what I’m about to tell him, "because no other ward will have
you. You’ve offended every attendant and orderly in the entire
complex."
"Where do I go when I offend you?"
"This is your last stop. You’re here for better or worse."
Lucky me. I turn back to the holoscreen and begin punching in the standard
questions.
"What are you doing now?" he demands. He tries to boost himself
up on a scrawny, miscolored elbow to watch me, but he’s too weak.
"Checking to see if I’m to medicate you for any diseases," I reply.
"I haven’t been out of bed in forty years," he rasps. "If I have
a disease, I got it from one of you goons."
I ignore his answer and continue staring at the screen. "You have
a history of cancer."
"Big deal," he says. "As quick as I get it, you bastards cure
it." He pauses. "Seventeen cancers. You cut five out, burned three
out, and drowned the other nine in your chemicals."
I keep reading the screen. "I see you still have your original
heart," I note with some surprise. Most hearts are replaced by
the time the patient is 120 years old, the lungs and kidneys even
sooner.
"Are you offering me yours?" he says sarcastically.
Okay, so he’s an arrogant, hostile bastard–but he’s also my only
charge who’s capable of speech, so I force a smile and try again.
"You’re a lucky man," I begin.
He glares at me. "You want to explain that?"
"You’ve retained your mental acuity. Very few manage that at your
advanced age."
"And you think that’s lucky, do you?"
"Certainly."
"Then you’re a fool," said Mr. Goldmeier.
I sigh. "I’m trying very hard to be your friend. You’re not making
it easy."
His emaciated face contracts in a look of disgust. "Why in hell
should you want to be my friend?"
"I want to be friends with all my charges."
"Them? " he says contemptuously, scanning the room. "You’d probably get
more action from a bunch of potted plants." It’s not dissimilar
from what Felicia says on occasion.
"Look," I say. "You’re going to be here for a very long time.
So am I. Why don’t we at least try to cultivate the illusion of
civility?"
"That’s a disgusting thought."
"Being civil?" I ask, wondering what kind of creature they have
delivered to my ward.
"That too," he says. "But I meant being here for a very long time."
He exhales deeply, and I hear a rattling in his chest and make
a mental note to tell the doctors about his congestion. Then he
adds: "Being anywhere for a very long time."
"What makes you so bitter?" I ask.
"I’ve seen terrible things, things no man should ever have to
see."
"We’ve had our share," I agree. "The war with Brazil. The meteor
that hit Mozambique. The revolution in Canada."
"Fool!" he snaps. "Those were diversions."
"Diversions?" I repeat incredulously. "Just what hellholes have
you been to?"
"The worst," he answers. "I’ve been to places where men begged
for death, and slowly went mad when it didn’t come."
"I don’t remember reading or hearing about anything like that,"
I say. "Where was this?"
He stares unblinking at me for a long moment before he answers.
"Right here, in the wards."
Felicia looks up from her plate. "His name’s Bernard Goldmeier?"
she says.
"That’s right."
"I don’t have any Bernards," she says. "It’s not the kind of name
they give to flowers."
"It doesn’t matter."
Suddenly her face brightens. "I do have a gold flower, though–a
Mesembryanthemum criniflorum. I can call it Goldie, or even Goldmeier."
"It’s not important."
"But it is," she insists. "For years it’s been how we compare
our days." She smiles. "It makes me feel closer to you, caring
for flowers with the same names."
"Fine," I say. "Call it whatever you want."
"You seem"–she searches for the word– "upset."
"He troubles me."
"Oh? Why?"
"I love my work," I begin.
"I know you do."
"And it’s meaningful work," I continue, trying to keep the resentment
from my voice. "Maybe I’m not a doctor, but I stand guard over
them and hold Death at bay. That’s important, isn’t it?"
"Of course it is," she says soothingly.
"He belittles it."
"That doesn’t mean a thing," says Felicia, reaching across the
table and taking my hand. "You know how they get when they’re
that old."
Yes, I know how they get. But he’s not like them. He sounds–I
don’t know–normal, like me; that’s the upsetting part.
"He doesn’t seem irrational," I say aloud. "Just bitter."
"Enough bitterness will make anyone irrational."
"I know," I say. "But . . ."
"But what?"
"Well, it’s going to sound juvenile and selfish . . ."
"You’re the least selfish man I know," says Felicia. "Tell me
what’s bothering you."
"It’s just that . . . well, I always thought that if my charges
could speak to me, they’d tell me how grateful they were, how
much my efforts meant to them." I pause and think about it. "Does
that make me selfish?"
"Certainly not," she replies. "I think they ought to be grateful." She pats my hand. "A lot of people in that place
are just earning salaries; you’re there because you care."
"Anyway, here I’ve finally got someone who could thank me, could tell me that I’m appreciated, and instead he’s
furious because I’m going to do everything within my power to
keep him alive."
She coos and purrs and makes soothing noises, but she doesn’t
actually say anything, and finally I change the subject and ask her about
her garden. A moment later she is rapturously describing the new
buds on the Aphelandra squarrosa, and telling me that she thinks she will have to divide the Scilla sibirica, and I listen gratefully and do not think about Mr. Goldmeier,
lying motionless in his bed and cursing the darkness, until I
arrive at work in the morning.
"Are you feeling any better today?" I ask as I approach Mr. Goldmeier’s
life station.
"No, I’m not feeling better today," he says nastily. "God’s fresh
out of miracles."
"Are you at least adjusting to your new surroundings?"
"Hell, no."
"You will."
"I damned well better not!"
I stare at him. "You’re not leaving here."
"I know."
"Then you might as well get used to the place."
"Never!"
"I don’t understand you at all," I say.
"That’s because you’re a fool!" he snaps. "Look at me! I have
no money and no family. I can’t feed myself or even sit up."
"That’s no reason to be so hostile," I say placatingly. I am about
to tell him that his condition is no different from most of my
charges, but he speaks first.
"All I have left is my rage. I won’t let you take it away; it’s
all that separates me from the vegetables here."
I look at him and shake my head sadly. "I don’t know what made
you like this."
"One hundred and fifty-three years made me like this," he says.
I continue staring at him, at the atrophied legs that will never
walk again, at the shriveled arms and skeletal fingers, at the
deathmask skull with its burning, sunken eyes, and I think: Maybe–just maybe–senility is Nature’s way of making life in such
a body tolerable. Maybe you’re not as lucky as I thought.
The major’s chin is wet with drool, and I walk over to him and
wipe it off.
"There," I say. "Clean as a whistle."
Okay, I think, staring down at him. You’re not grateful, but at least you don’t hate me for doing
what you can no longer do for yourself. Why can’t they all be
like you?
"Why don’t you ask for a transfer to another ward if he’s bothering
you that much?" asks Felicia.
"What would I say?" I reply. "That this old man who can’t even
roll over without help is driving me away?"
"Just tell them you want a change."
I shake my head. "My work is important to me. My charges are important to me. I can’t turn my back on them just because
he makes my life miserable."
"Maybe you should sit down and figure out why he upsets you."
"He makes me think uncomfortable thoughts."
"What kind of uncomfortable thoughts?"
"I don’t want to talk about it," I reply. But what I really mean
is: I don’t want to think about it.
I just wish I could get my brain to listen to me.
* * *
Superintendent Bailey enters the ward and approaches me.
"I’m going to need you to work a little overtime today," he informs
me.
"Oh?" I reply. "What’s the problem?"
"There must be some virus going around," he says. "A third of
the staff has called in sick."
"All right. I’ll just have to let Felicia know I’ll be late for
dinner. Where do you want me to go when I’m through here?"
"Ward 87."
"Isn’t that a women’s ward?" I ask.
"Yes."
"I’d rather have a different assignment, sir."
"And I’d rather have a full staff!" he snaps. "We’re both doomed
to be disappointed today."
He turns and leaves the ward.
"What have you got against women?" croaks Mr. Goldmeier. I had
thought he was asleep, but he’s been lying there, motionless,
with his eyes (and his ears) wide open.
"Nothing," I answer. "I just don’t think I should bathe them."
"Why the hell not?"
"It’s a matter of respecting their dignity."
"Their dignity?" he snorts derisively.
"Their modesty, if you prefer."
"Dignity? Modesty? What the fuck are you talking about?"
"They’re human beings," I answer with dignity of my own.
"Not any more," he replies contemptuously. "They’re a bunch of
vegetables that don’t give a damn who bathes them." He closes
his eyes. "You’re a blind, sentimental fool."
I hate it when he says things like that, because I want to explain
that I am not a blind, sentimental fool. But that requires me to prove he is
wrong, and I can’t–I’ve tried.
All human beings have modesty and dignity. If they haven’t any,
then they’re not human beings any more–and if they’re not human
beings, why are we keeping them alive? Therefore, they must have modesty and dignity.
Then I think of those shriveled bodies and atrophied limbs and
uncomprehending eyes, and I start getting another migraine.
Two days have passed, and I am not eating or sleeping any better
than Mr. Goldmeier.
"What did he say this time?" says Felicia wearily, staring across
the dining room table at me.
"I’m not sure," I answer. "He kept talking about youth in Asia,
so finally I looked them up in the encyclopedia. All it says is
that there are a lot of them and they’re starving." I pause, frowning.
"But as far as I can tell, he’s never been to Asia. I don’t know
why he kept talking about them."
"Who knows?" says Felicia with a shrug. "He’s an old man. They
don’t always make sense."
"He makes too goddamned much sense," I mutter bitterly.
"Could you have misunderstood the words?" she asks. "Old men mumble
a lot."
"I doubt it. I understand everything else he says, so why not
this?"
"Let’s find out for sure," she says, activating the dining room
computer. It glows with life. "Computer, find synonyms for the
term ‘youth in Asia.’ "
The computer begins rattling them off. "Young people in Asia.
Adolescents in Asia. Children in Asia. Teenagers in–"
"Stop!" commands Felicia. "Synonym was the wrong term. Computer,
are there any homonyms for the term youth in Asia?"
"A homonym is an exact match," answers the computer, "and there
is no exact match."
"Are there any close approximations?"
"One. The word euthanasia."
"Ah," says Felicia triumphantly. "And what does it mean?"
"It is an archaic word, no longer in use. I can find no definition
of it in my memory bank."
"Eu-tha-na-sia," says Mr. Goldmeier, articulating each syllable.
"How the hell can the dictionaries and encyclopedias not list
it any longer?"
"They list it," I explain. "They just don’t define it."
"Figures," he says disgustedly. As I wait patiently for him to
tell me what the word means, he changes the subject. "How long
have you worked here?"
"Almost fourteen years."
"Seen a lot of patients come and go?"
"Of course I have."
"Where do they go when they leave here?"
"They don’t, except when they’re transferred to another ward."
"So they come to this place, and then they die?"
"You make it sound like it happens overnight," I reply. "We’ve
kept some of them alive for more than a century," I add proudly.
"A lot of them, in fact."
He stares at me. I recognize that particular stare; it means I’m
not going to like what he says next.
"You could save a lot of time and effort by killing them right
away."
"That would be contrary to civil and moral law!" I reply angrily.
"It’s our job to keep every patient alive."
"Have you ever asked them if they want to be kept alive?"
"No one wants to die."
"Right. It’s against all civil and moral law." He coughs and tries
to clear his lungs. "Well, that’s why you won’t find it in the
dictionary."
"Find what?" I ask, confused.
"Euthanasia," he says.
"I don’t understand you."
"That’s what we were talking about, isn’t it?" he says. "It means
mercy killing."
"Mercy killing?"
"You’ve heard both words before. Figure it out."
I am still wondering why anyone would think it was merciful to
kill another human being when my shift ends and I go home.
"Why would someone want to die?" I ask Felicia.
She rolls her eyes. "Goldmeier again?"
"Yes."
"Somehow I’m not surprised," she says in annoyed tones. She shakes
her head sadly. "I don’t know where that man gets his ideas. No
one wants to die." She pauses. "Look at it logically. If someone’s
in pain, he can go on medication. If he’s lost a limb, he can
get a prosthesis. If he’s too feeble even to feed himself–well,
that’s what trained people like you are there for."
"What if he’s just tired of living?"
"You know better than that," replied Felicia with unshakeable
certainty. "Every living organism fights to stay alive. That’s
the first law of Nature."
"Yes, I suppose so," I agree.
"He’s a nasty old man. Did he say anything else?"
"No, not really." I toy with my food. Somehow my appetite has
vanished. "How were things at the greenhouse?"
"They finally got exactly the shade of phosphorescent silver they
want for the Aglaonema crispum," she says. "I think they’re going to call it the ‘Silver Charm.’
"
"Cute name."
"Yes, I rather like it. They tell me there was once a famous racehorse,
centuries ago, with that name." She pauses. "Of course, it means
some extra work for me."
"Potting them?"
"They’re all potted. No, the problem is making room for them.
I think we’ll have to get rid of the Browallia speciosa majorus."
"But those are your majors!" I protest. "I know how you love them!"
"I do," she admits. "They have exquisite blossoms. But they’ve
got some kind of exotic root rot disease." She sighs deeply. "I
saw some discoloration, some slimy residue . . . but I didn’t
identify it in time. It’s my fault they’re dying."
"Why not bring them home?" I suggest.
"If you want majors, I’ll bring some young, healthy ones that
will flower in the spring. But I’m just going to dump the old
ones in the garbage. The disease won."
I’m grasping for something, but I’m not quite sure what. "Didn’t
you just tell me that every living thing fights to stay alive?"
"The majors don’t want to die," said Felicia. "They’re infected,
so I’m taking that decision out of their hands before the disease
can spread to other plants."
"But if–"
"Don’t go getting philosophical with me," she says. "They’re only
flowers. It’s not as if they feel any pain."
Later that night I find myself wondering when was the last time
Rex or the major or Mr. Spinoza or any of the others felt any
pain.
Fifty years? Seventy-five? A hundred? More?
Then I realize that that’s what Mr. Goldmeier wants me to think. He sees the weak and he wants them dead.
But they’re not his targets at all. They never were.
I finally know who he is trying to infect.
I show up early for work and enter my ward. Everyone is sleeping.
I look at my charges, and a warm glow comes over me. We are a team, you and I. I give you life and you give me satisfaction
and a sense of purpose. I pledge to you that I will never let
anyone destroy the bond between us.
When I think about it, there is really very little difference
between Felicia’s job and my own. She has to protect her flowers;
I have to protect mine.
I fill a syringe and walk silently over to Mr. Goldmeier’s life
station.
It is time to start weeding my garden. |
